M6G Pistol
The M6G Personal Defense Weapon System (M6G PDWS), more commonly referred to as the '''M6G Magnum '''or simply the '''Pistol, '''is a United Nations Space Command infantry firearm, and is one of the variants of Misriah Armory's M6 sidearm series. Overview & Background The M6G is an all purpose pistol, which saw heavy use during the Battle of Reach. In the hands of a Spartan-II like the Master Chief, the weapon can be fired with pinpoint accuracy up to a certain range when fired slowly. The Master Chief is an expert with this weapon, and when using its smart-linked zoom, he will never fire the weapon at a rate at which it will lose accuracy. This means that it will fire at a slow rate of fire when zoomed. However, when unzoomed, the gun can be fired at an alarmingly quick rate, outputting massive damage while burning through its relatively shallow magazine. Like all pistols, it is headshot capable. Gameplay Information Advantages * The Pistol deals relatively high damage per shot, allowing it to rapidly punch through Brute armour and low-ranking Elite energy shielding. * The Pistol has an "uncapped" rate of fire, meaning that the weapon can fire as fast as the player can pull the trigger. This makes for an extremely dangerous emergency weapon at close range, as an adept player can counteract ambushes by performing a magazine dump (emptying the magazine as fast as possible) into the aggressor. * The Pistol possesses near-perfect accuracy while scoped in which, combined with its ability to instantly kill via headshots, makes it into a proficient precision weapon capable of sniping enemies from close-to-medium range. * The Pistol is easily among the more powerful and versatile Close-Quarters Combat weapon on offer, combining the above benefits with fast reload times/melee strikes (compared to other weapons capable of performing headshots) which allows the weapon to rapidly eliminate entire squads of adversaries. Disadvantages * Bloom will cause the Pistol's accuracy to quickly degrade while fired unscoped, restricting magazine dumps to close-range encounters. * While scoped in, the Pistol's rate of fire is restricted to 2 rounds per second, drastically reducing the weapon's burst-damage capabilities and forcing the user to rely more on sniping for headshots when engaging enemies at range. * Compared to other weapons capable of performing headshots, the pistol has a drastically shorter effective range, making it a strictly close-quarters weapon with limited medium-range applications. * Due to its small 8-round magazine and 80-round reserve ammo capacity, the Pistol cannot be retained for extended periods of time should its ammo be expended in a wasteful manner. * This more or less forces the player to primarily shoot for headshots when using the Pistol, as it is the most ammunition-economic option available. Developer Information The Pistol is central to Halo 1 and we wanted to honor it, yet it had to change due to the addition of the Battle Rifle, DMR, and Carbine. With the Battle Rifle taking the role of the pistol with its 12 bursts per clip and roughly identical damage, the Pistol needed to redefine itself. The idea of a pistol with bloom in Halo: Reach was a mixed bag, with it becoming annoying to use in some situations, but fun in others, noticeably at close range. The zoom behavior from H1 was retained, making it an effective mini rifle, albeit with a reduction in range to give the BR and DMR an edge at longer range combat. We added a feature designed for the BR's single shot behavior, allowing us to modify the rate of fire when a zoom state was detected that was added by OpenSauce. We then combined that with the Sniper Rifle's functionality of having total accuracy when zoomed in to get consistent and reliable behaviour. Meanwhile, the rapid-fire functionality from Reach was brought in, which gives the gun a unique purpose in tight spaces, like the Pillar of Autumn. This was questioned by some, as the first half of the game gives you few spaces where this is useful. However, we knew this would be important once the Flood were introduced, where players would want to take advantage of its close range capabilities and fast melee attacks, especially since the Flood now have a headshot capable region on their chests. The Pistol was then made the most commonly distributed headshot weapon among levels, so that players could always get a headshot capable weapon, but not one that would be the best necessarily for headshots. Due to its inferior nature, we hoped people would have to make better decisions and weigh the tradeoffs of dropping their rifle. Likewise, it is paired with the more powerful loadout weapons in order to make sure the player does not have to much of an advantage over the other choices. Trivia * The pistol has a range of 30 world units, compared to the 40 on the BR and 50 on the DMR. For perspective, a Frag Grenade has a max radius of 3.5 world units. Gallery Pistol Evolution.PNG|The Pistol's evolution Category:UNSC Infantry Weapons